DKK - A currency the sheister British hedge funds lost 10s of Millions in 2013/14 trying to push it out of pegging with the Euro. They managed it the year before with the Swiss Franc.
Well sorry, I read your use of inverted commas and general tone as an implication that I made it up i.e. that I lied, and that I make a habit of it. I apologise for apparently getting the wrong end of the stick.
please log in to view this image How Britain celebrates Christmas in 2017: Armed guards, concrete barriers and metal detectors spring up around festive markets due to Muslim terror attack fears stay safe while you are doing your christmas shopping
Tonight a Labour MP's amendment to #EUWithdrawalBill to keep UK in Single Market was supported by Labour Remain MPs but opposed by Labour front bench, whipped Labour Remain MPs & Labour Leave MPs. If you're confused, here's a simple graphic explaining Labour's #Brexit policy please log in to view this image
Bad move for the EU to relocate the European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Authority to Amsterdam and Paris respectively. Although these cities might be more suited to hosting these agencies it would have made political sense for at least one of them to go to a central or Eastern European country. The EMA going to Amsterdam smacks of pharmaceutical industry lobbying. It’s easy to get to from London, where many Pharma companies have their European HQs, including the regulatory teams which work with EMA. Any further away and they might have had to relocate them.
A much more acceptable illustration than pictures of Labour ministers turning themselves inside out, which is not a pretty sight
Big corporate lobbying within the EU? Surely not... Agree about Eastern Europe location. I'm coming around to the £40bn carrot. Has to be conditional on successful trade talks (not simply the start of trade talks, as some media outlets have reported). If Brussels insist on heavy conditions to trade, we walk away with our money in tact. What I can't work out is timing. Assuming the carrot is enough to get Trade talks started by January, the UK surely need to know what onerous trading conditions the EU intend to impose by March 2018 at the latest. This would give time (but not much) to prepare business for a no-deal, if the EU terms are unacceptable. But what is to stop the EU stringing the UK along during 2018, towards a chaotic Brexit in 2019? Certain basic trade conditions must surely be signed off contractually by March 2018 at the latest.
Thank god the U.K. government doesn’t heed corporate lobbyists. Otherwise we’d be making deals with unpublished contents with companies like Nissan. Isn’t this where the transitional period comes in? We pay the originally promised £20bn according to some schedule, the new extra £20bn would not be added to the schedule until the trade deal was agreed. Even I wouldn’t pay for something promised but not delivered. Given the snails pace of negotiations on the exit bits of Brexit, and the complexity and time taken for trade agreements in the past, I can’t see how even heads of agreement can be reached by next March. If the trade deal is in place by March 2019, which still looks ambitious, then we have up to 2 years for businesses to prepare for the new environment before it is implemented. I think the original £20bn can only be retained in the case of a complete no deal, ie no agreement on citizens rights and Irish border either, it is not contingent on the trade deal, just the U.K. meeting the obligations that it agrees that it has.
The transitional arrangements supposedly help businesses with two additional years of Single Market trading - but will only apply if a trade deal, or basics of a trade deal, have been agreed upon. So there's a Catch 22. If we reach next March, and the basics of a trade deal - e.g. EU regulations applying in the UK after Brexit, jurisdiction of the ECJ, restriction on the UK becoming a tax-advantageous jurisdiction after Brexit - have not been agreed, the UK government will only have a year to implement post-leave arrangements. So either the March 2019 date would have to be extended by agreement of all (this is in addition to transitional arrangements) or the UK would surely have to cut and run to no-deal.
Bloody BBC! On a serious note and as I said yesterday Germany having problems could help us out. Agree uncertainty is not the way to go but for once it's not May having a bad day it's Merkel (queen of the EU). People have been saying for months that all the UK uncertainty makes our hand weaker and the EU stronger so I guess the flip side to that is now the leader of the EU is going through problems then it should ease the strain on us? or does it not work the other way around because Brexit is wrong? Interesting what Gisela Stuart MP said today. She went to BMW in Germany to meet officials and said they want a deal with the UK and not to punish them. German cars employ 750K workers and sell 800K cars to UK. Says it all.
To be absolutely honest it is obvious that Merkel will fall sometime - it happens. She is the longest serving leader in the EU. and all things come to an end sometime. Germany has a problem with finding a suitable coalition which will last over the next 4 years - again, this is nothing new, and countries have a right to take as much time as they need to get these things right, and Germany is no exception. Perhaps they will take as long as Belgium took - 500+ days, but then Liege, Antwerp and Bruges are all still standing, the World goes on. Maybe Germany will need 500+ days and, during that time, the people may ask the question 'Do we need government' ? Actually Germany is the most decentralized country in Europe anyway so it matters less here than it would elsewhere.
Germany may find it loses Bavaria, which from memory, has pressed for a Brexit-style referendum this year
Can I ask a simple question ? (Though I doubt there is a simple answer) How long is it estimated that it will take this country to ‘claw back’ £40 billion from when we stop making contributions to the EU ? I know this probably isn’t that straight forward but have any projections been made ?
Given that our net contributions to the EU are about £10bn a year, and we won’t be paying this anymore, about 4 years. I don’t think we will be expected to give £40bn upfront though. If we give £10bn a year for 4 years it’s the same as now. But we won’t be getting the subsidies/grants that we currently do from the EU and will have to replace at least some of those from our own budget, so it’s not entirely straightforward. Of course that doesn’t take into account the potential extra costs of new customs, immigration etc arrangements and potential slower economic growth that predicted if we stayed in.
We can but dream Goldie This would mean that Borussia Dortmund would be champions. We would not longer have to cope with the tripe that Seehofer comes out with, and Lederhosen would no longer be associated with Germany. There is actually a Bavarian independence Party, which never gets more than 2% of the vote so it's not on the horizon. Actually the German states have a great deal of autonomy - they can actually sign international deals in their own right, unless they are a threat to Federal security. Maybe the Austrians would have them if we asked nicely !
